A comparison of two pairing procedures to establish praise as a reinforcer.

The team tested two ways to make praise work like candy.

First way: they said “good job” and handed over a chip at the same time.

Second way: they waited for the person to touch a card, then said “good job” and gave the chip.

All eight adults had intellectual disability.

Sessions ran until praise alone made the adults keep touching cards.

Touch-first plus praise worked for four of eight people.

Praise-plus-chip-at-the-same-time worked for only one of four.

For most, praise never became a real reinforcer.

Winett et al. (1991) and Clark et al. (1970) showed pigeons learn faster when a light or sound is paired with food.

Davison et al. (2010) found the same thing: the stimulus must come right after the bird’s response.

Those animal studies match Goodwin et al. (2012): response-stimulus pairing beats simple pairing.

Thomas et al. (1988) looks like a contradiction.

They gave social praise plus edibles and saw no extra benefit.

The difference is V et al. never tried to fade out the edibles.

L et al. kept going until only praise was left.

Same population, different goal.

If you want praise to replace chips or tokens, make the person do something first, then give both praise and the edible.

Fade the edible slowly.

Expect it to work about half the time.

If it fails, keep the edible backup and try again later.